How Conveniently "We" Choose To Set The World Ablaze !
A 38C3 Chaos Congress Analysis - Part 3 (of 4)
In our XLterrestrials’ fantasies, we have often tried to imagine more ‘effective’ conferences and symposiums to understand and navigate our planet and its diverse cultures mired in multiple crises.
Chaos Communications Congress - the oldest and largest hacker conference in the world ( since 1984 ) - is one of those events that has immense potentials to grapple with all the difficulties of a world precariously entangled in some of the most powerful and transforming technological constructions of our times: Cybernetics and The Net.
We have attended numerous times, but are - more often than not - left with a deeply uncomfortable anxiety that tech sector scenes have not managed to address the urgent dilemmas that have arrived with this colossal mixed-mesh of churning forces and (competing) enterprises. The Chaos creators and organizers have developed an admirable guiding motto: Be Excellent To Each Other. And yet there’s alot of myopic tendencies, when the passions for technological innovations ( and all the fixes + blinky bling ) supercedes the critical and analytical thinking. Especially when, if one considers that the machines + digital culture ( + the corporate powers behind them ) have clearly gone rogue and/or batshit greedy and/or psychopathic … and are steering the whole social organism off a cliff !
So what would it take to upgrade this event for our seriously endangered times ?! What would this massive gathering ( online and off ) of tech activists ( and western tech addicts ? ) look like if we stacked the deck with sociologists, anthropologists, humanitarians, socialists, anti-krapitalists, anarcho-strategists, psychiatric + health practioners, ethics experts ( with tech + science backrounds ) ??! …
Nah ! Too long-winded for our current hijacked-house-on-fire scenarios !
How about if we just screened the new Wallace and Gromit : Vengeance Most Fowl and discuss its take on technology ( and A.I.) … for 3 or 4 days ?!
Pic above: The automated + A.I-charged Gnome is one of the mild-mannered Wallace’s new innovations to make things more *convenient* for the suburban Brit ( -Git? ) lifestyle and his dog pal. Things go epic- amok - which makes for a hilarious animation comedy + crime-thriller !
Warning: possible Spoiler Alert !
The W+G script by Nick Park and Mark Burton is quite a useful tale to take apart what we would call the whole “Tech Beast” ( an XLt diagnosis ).
Of course this film is no radical political art specimen. It’s lighthearted, surreal and silly fun. In their version of “beastly tech” an odd penguin / evil mastermind named Feathers McGraw “hacks” Wallace’s Robot ( + A.I. ) innovations for its own criminal intentions.
Maybe this is a good starting point for analyzing today’s Tech Industry environments that are a threat to our planetary well-being. Our predicaments are not the result of one individual, nor even that of a few Bastard-Tech-Oligarchs. We should probably be discussing what trajectories, they/we create, when we build tools that stem from a krapitalist operating system. Tools that have phenomenal and unprecedented powers, and simultaneously make them available to any git, miscreant or Military Industrial Complex ( MIC ), when we clearly have not evolved as an intelligent collective species living in balance with our environments. We are currently living in a profoundly dysfunctional society. We ( and especially THEY ) surely cannot be trusted with tools that can wield powers ( and hegemony ) over a diverse global populace and global consciousness. It’s like Nuclear Garbage In, Nuclear Garbage Out. GiGon ! It’s also like building the proverbial one-way rocket ship to Planet B, before even knowing what you came to Planet A for.
For the XLt it seems crucial now to portray the new corporate and military tech + media environments as an invasive ‘alien’ super-toxicity species, now capable of permanently mutating humanity and human communications, for purposes that may be relevant only for amassing power over others, rather than any kind of true evolutionary nor communitarian leap. We could argue it’s a violent disruption + hijack of the whole ‘organic’ life intelligence system(s). BUT that’s getting into a whole other - not-so-funny - sci-fi tale, that we’ll have to animate some other time ;)
( Note: Most probably these themes are already well-covered by the more anti-patriarchal-oriented sci-fi and social fiction writers like Le Guin, Octavia Butler, etc, Other + specific suggestions here most welcome! )
The funny W+G scenario is not at all an accurate mirror of our Tech Gone Amok! The “AI-enhanced” helper-Gnomes are not only a problem because a lone perpetrator can hack some new technology for evil agendas. The notions that we - as a multiplicity of diverse societies - can have our social relations increasingly managed / governed / operated ( which translates in the grim realities of hierarchical + predatory power to: controlled, racistly homogenized, divided, harnessed and exploited ) by cybernetic networks + systems is fraught with delusions ! In the same way, we can see the gaping contextual holes at a tech conference like Chaos.
Btw, some cool uplifting collective-minded evolution-worthy news that we should all take note of: Wallace and Gromit producers decide on Employee Ownership for Aardman ( thx to ‘BJS’ for that news alert ). This is what solidarity + labor united looks like ! F*ck all the Techno-feudalists, Oligarchies + Colonizers !
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Ok, ok, probably a bit too simple… and too tongue-in-cheek … to start ( and take over ) a CCC congress with a quirky popular kultur flik.
But we are seriously - in hindsight - wondering if this form of interventionist ‘smart-bomb entertainment’ might have provided a better introduction for the opening Day 1 for the 38c3 Congress to better address the planetary-scale dumpster fire that has so much to do with our nearly complete “societal submission” to the predatory Tech Industries in this terrifying new age of fully Weaponized Communications !
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OK, ok… BUt there really ARE some important things that were on the Global-North-style smorgasbord platter of adept-level tech expertise. And we will mention a few sessions that seem relevant for our XLt purposes here: To Hack the Psyches of the Über-wired generations, and to detourn the out-of-control monstrosities that have “oh-so-conveniently” set the world ABLAZE !
These are some highlights below from this year’s 38c3 for us. We could write long essays on each one of em, but we need to put our time elsewhere. And no, this is not a comprehensive list nor a full overview of all that may be of value. And tech specialists will obviously find much more in the program worthwhile for their specific fields of work and interest.
But we have other more specific fish to fry !
Namely, to challenge the pervasive view that the rapidly expanding techno-centric dystopias are this must-have + irreversible gateway to higher social + collective intelligence and learning. The machines + data worlds are NOT the primary infrastuctures for co-habitating organisms to navigate nor engineer our diverse - and pluriversal - futures. That’s a highly problematic + conveniently reductionist misunderstanding and misalignment of interdependent life forms.
In fact from our big picture analysis : The techno-centric myopias are the problem! Rather than the colloquial “1st-world problems”, we should call them out as 1ST WORLD CALAMITIES !
Our communities and our humanity will not likely find sufficiently ‘user-friendly’ EMERGENCY EXITS in the current tech environments in order to get its feet back on the ground, and to become a socially-responsible Actor / Mensch / Symbiotic Organism! We must aim for the means to create a more equal, more just, more sustainable and more eco-friendly habitat for ALL. And that will not occur via Hyper-Industrialized Consumer-Krapitalist Technologies.
There ARE cool and very useable and very pragmatic tech tools to assist in our desires and hopes and praxis for better and healthier futures. But having a proper orientation to the current crises is a top priority. And to achieve that, we imagine that it will probably require things like sharp de-escalations of the colonial + war-feeding machines and their industrializing infrastructures ( like the proliferation of personal devices, as just one example ) in the personal, local, public and global spheres !
XLt Highlights:
Der Mythos der „gezielten Tötung”. Zur Verantwortung von KI-gestützten Zielsystemen am Beispiel „Lavender“ - Rainer Rehak ( XLt Notes: Auf DE sprache. As we mentioned in part 1+2, one of the biggest tech stories of the year is the details of what’s called “The Palestine Laboratory” - not mentioned as such here. It’s the massive escalation of using the latest tech tools for war + war crimes + colonialist agendas. Rainer - and the orgs he respresents - have produced well-researched details + facts similar in a way to what Forensic Architecture does. It’s useful for all activists who wish to expose these atrocities, and provides strong arguments for banning weapons exports from DE and other complicit actors. But it’s a cold, detached, technical analysis, and avoids, perhaps strategicly, providing stronger political solidarities, and the moral outrage that must infuse the ethical debates in order this bring this still unfolding catastrophe to a quicker end. )
Feelings are Facts: Love, Privacy, and the Politics of Intellectual Shame -
Meredith Whittaker ( XLt Notes: in Eng. We need to revisit this one ourselves, but our impression was on the opening nite that it was a potent kind of language hack, of where more focus is needed. One might say it is also a feminist hack that is picking apart the tech patriarchy, which is a part of feeding so many false solutions. It’s also valuable to measure the resistant voices that have been inside the Silicon Valley Beast. But it’s also to useful to note its flaws and omissions… as the tech oligarchy is not sufficiently made visible here. It’s a very ‘safe’ industry talk, with some soft complaints. )
Nein zur Bezahlkarte - Rechte Symbolpolitik mit Solidarität aushebeln
Munir & Jot ( XLt Notes: Mostly DE + some Eng. For us, this is an important example of getting into very pragmatic local struggles. Something CCC should be doing more of, and also finding ways that it can leverage it’s weight in a tech industry to highlight the struggles of the most vulnerable in society. And highlights the need for more migrant voices + perspectives in DE’s tech sectors + struggles! )
Der CCC-Jahresrückblick - erdgeist, kantorkel, khaleesi, Linus Neumann and Constanze Kurz ( XLt Notes: Auf DE. We found this highlights how CCClub as an org has avoided taking on the big political issues - like the tech warfare in Rainer’s talk. And for us it’s really a shameful omission. These are very skilled + knowledgeable speakers about netz politics, but it appears the public, and other engaged tech activists, are going to need to point out the weak spots and demand CCC get much bolder in its defending human rights issues and understanding the tech sector complicities in so much of the bloody MIC and Corporate Krapitalist messes. )
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We might try and come back to post more highlights. But to be honest we find so much in this program to be like a huge distraction to what our imperatives are for organizing the appropriate cultures of resistance in these very dangerous times. We are under siege by technological mutations produced by a now unrestrained techno-fascism ! Can the master’s house of weapons be dismantled by the master’s weapons ? There will be needs for alternative technologies for sure, but there will also need to be a massive humnaitarian paradigm shift, and is unlikely that it will be delivered through screens, code and gadgets… nor come to your doorstep in an Amazon box.
We did want to critically analyze more of 38c3, because it is a part of the hackers’ tasks to illustrate where things are not effective. But we also don’t want to over-alienate our readers nor our tech comrades. As we mentioned, we feel a need for urgent upgrades ! But also we need to move on…. to the fields of work that we have more affinities with.
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to be cont. ?